This series is designed to help new Project Managers understand the fundamentals of A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, (PMBOK® Guide) Fourth Edition, 2008. The series also provides the fundamental knowledge, terminology and processes of Project Management at the level needed for obtaining CAPM® certification.

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Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)® 00:40:40This Nugget provides an overview of the Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) certification from the Project Management Institute (PMI)®. To ensure that CAPM is the appropriate certification, the Nugget first reviews the CAPM certification in relation to other Project Management certifications available. Next, CAPM certification eligibility, qualifications, exam format and application process are reviewed. Finally, some tips and hints are provided to ensure that you are prepared for the exam and in the appropriate mindset to successfully pass the CAPM exam.

PMI and CAPM are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

Introduction to Project Management and the Project Life Cycle 00:37:41This Nugget reviews the first 2 chapters of A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, (PMBOK® Guide) Fourth Edition, and calls out the material relevant to the CAPM® certification. This Nugget starts with a discussion of the definition of a project as defined by the PMBOK® Guide: "A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result." This relatively simply definition provides 2 very key characteristics - a project is temporary, with a defined beginning and end and a project is unique. Understanding these two characteristics will become repeating themes through this series. Next, a series of PMI principles are reviewed to help the viewer understand the expectations that PMI has for Project Managers. The 9 Knowledge Areas and the 5 Life Cycle Stages are then introduced to define the layout for the remaining Nuggets in this series. Finally, this Nugget reviews a number of terms, such as Programs, Portfolios, Project Management Offices, Organizational Characteristics and Project Stakeholders to ensure the viewer has a full appreciation of the terms and expectations of Project Management as defined by PMI.

Project Management Processes 00:38:19This Nugget reviews Chapter 3 of A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, (PMBOK® Guide) Fourth Edition: Project Management Processes: Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling and Closing. The first topic discussed is the relationship between these 5 processes and where each fits on the project timeline. Initiating is positioned as an initial, and typically brief, upfront process to validate the project. Next, Planning, Executing and Monitoring and Controlling are presented as a cyclical processes which occur throughout the project. The project starts with an intensive Planning process, followed by ongoing Planning as changes are identified through the Executing and Monitoring and Controlling processes. The project completes in with the Closing process, another brief process, which takes place at the end of the project. With the processes positioned on the project timeline, the Nugget then provides an overview of each of the Processes. Initiating, although a brief period on the time line, is critical as it prepares the Project Charter, which is the document which defines the business requirements for the project. As well, Initiating identifies the project stakeholders, success criteria and secures organizational commitment to the project based on a cost/benefit analysis. Next, Planning is presented as the most critical process as it elaborates on the Project Charter and prepares the Project Management Plan which defines the project in terms of the 9 Knowledge Areas. With the Project Management Plan in place, the Nugget then reviews the Executing Phase, which is where the team completes the project deliverables and the Project Management team facilitates the team completing the project by removing any roadblocks encountered by the project team. Next, the Nugget reviews the Monitoring and Controlling Phase, which is where the Project Manager monitors and controls the project based on the Project Management Plan. The Scope, Time and Budget are validated against the approved plans and corrective actions are applied to keep the project on track. The other key aspect of this phase reviewed is the establishment of stringent Change Control processes to ensure that all changes are fully validated and approved before being included into the project. Finally, the Closing Phase is reviewed with a focus on obtaining final approval and conducting lessons learned sessions to ensure that the organization's project management best practices are improved as a result of the project.

PMBOK Guide is a registered mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

Project Integration Management 00:41:41This Nugget reviews the first of the 9 Knowledge Areas defined in A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, (PMBOK® Guide) Fourth Edition: Project Integration Management. Project Integration Management defined the integration of the 8 other Knowledge Areas into an integrated Project Management approach. This Nugget reviews the 6 processes defined for Project Integration Management: Develop Project Charter - the definition of the business requirements to be satisfied by the project, the completion of the cost-benefit analysis and the formal approval of the Project Charter, which also formally approved the project to proceed to the next stage. Develop Project Management Plan - the elaboration of the Project Charter into the Project Management Plan which provided the foundation for the rest of the project by documenting the Scope, Time, Budget, Quality, Communication, HR, Risk, Procurement approaches for the project. Direct and Manage Project Execution - the process where the project deliverables are produced and the quality assurance takes place to ensure that the deliverables are accepted when presented. Manage and Control Project Work - the proactive tracking and managing of the project schedule, budget and risks and the reporting of project status to the project stakeholders. Perform Integrated Change Control - The identification, qualification, documentation and approval of all changes to the project. Close Project or Phase - Obtaining acceptance of the project or phase and secure approval for the next phase.

PMBOK Guide is a registered mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

Project Scope Management 00:34:58This Nugget reviews the second PMBOK Guide Knowledge Area, Project Scope Management. Project Scope Management is presented as the most important of all that Knowledge Areas as it serves as the base used by all the other Knowledge Areas. For example, with the Scope defined, Time Management defines the time required to satisfy the scope statement, Cost Management defines the budget required to satisfy the scope statement, etc. The Nugget presents the 5 Processes for Project Scope Management. Collect Requirements - where the project team conducts interviews, workshops and JAD sessions to identify and document the business requirements creating the Project Charter. Define Scope - expands on the requirements in the Project Charter to be clear, concise and unambiguous. Next, the Project Deliverables required to satisfy the scope statement are defined and finally the acceptance criteria for each deliverable are defined. Create Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) - the WBS expands the Deliverables into the Work Packages required to complete the work required to produce the deliverables. Verify Scope - verification that the completed deliverables will be accepted when they are presented to the project acceptor. Control Scope - ongoing review of the work being completed on the project to ensure that only approved work is being done and that Integrated Change Control is used when requirements require a change in the WBS.

PMBOK Guide is a registered mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

Project Time Management 00:46:35This Nugget reviews the third Knowledge Area - Project Time Management. This Nugget uses the WBS developed in Scope Management to determine the project schedule. Project Time Management consists of 6 Processes. Define Activities - completes further decomposition of the WBS Work Packages to Activities which are individually assignable and estimateable. Sequence Activities - identifies the predecessor/successor relationships between the activities to ensure that to project work is completed in the correct sequence. Estimate Activity Resources - identifying the resources required to do the work for each activity. Estimate Activity Durations - identifies how long it will take to complete each activity, either in terms of elapsed time or actual work. Develop Schedule - concludes the planning aspects of Project Time Management by taking the completed WBS, Resource Assignments, Activity Estimates and Dependencies to develop the overall project schedule. Control Schedule - identifies the monitoring and control task to track the actual work completed and updated estimates to complete to determine whether the project is still on schedule. This Nugget introduces two concepts, Network Analysis/Critical Path Analysis and PERT estimating which should be well understood as there is a high likelihood that there will be specific questions on the CAPM® exam related to both of these concepts.

CAPM is a registered mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

Project Cost Management 00:46:47This Nugget reviews the fourth Knowledge Area - Project Cost Management. This Nugget reviews the steps defined for Project Cost Management. Project Cost Management consists of 3 Processes. Estimate Costs - expands on the WBS to ensure the full costs for each WBS element, resource, materials, services, etc are included in the project's budget. As part of determining the budget, the Nugget reviews the importance of ensuring that the project risks and contingencies are included in the overall project budget. Determine Budget - the aggregation of the project costs into a time based cash flow statement and satisfying the overall financial analysis required by organizational financial policies. Control Costs - the ongoing management of the project's actual costs against the project budget based on the financial management cycle for the organization. The Nugget closes with a detailed review of a Cost Management process called Earned Value Management (EVM). While EVM may be a new concept to CAPM candidates, it is a key PM process and will definitely be included in the exam. EVM is a management tool which integrates Scope, Cost and Quality into a single PM measurement. The Nugget reviews the EVM terms, formulas and application of this process, including tips and hints for ensuring appropriate readiness for the CAPM exam questions related to EVM.

Project Quality Management 00:34:32This Nugget reviews the fifth Knowledge Area - Project Quality Management. This Nugget starts with an overview of Quality as defined in the PMBOKGuide. We first distinguish between quality, which is validating that the result fulfills the stated business requirements, and grade, which is simply a measure of the amount of functionality the project is expected to deliver. A project can be a total success delivering very limited functionality but delivering that limited functionality at the appropriate level of quality. Next, a review of other quality expectations: that quality is a management responsibility and quality is BUILT INTO a project to ensure proactive and early quality prevention steps. Project Quality Management consists of 3 process: Plan Quality - Planning a project's quality begins with a definition of the quality expectations of the project and then identifies the appropriate quality activities which must be built in to the project to ensure the project satisfies the quality expectations. Perform Quality Assurance - performing ongoing quality audits to ensure that the project is following the standards and procedures defined for the project and that the project is doing the right things and implementing ongoing process improvements to adjust the standards and procedures are appropriate. Perform Quality Control -performing the inspections and reviews to ensure that the project is doing things right and that the project deliverables satisfy the stated requirements. The Nugget reviews a number of Quality Control techniques which can be applied to ensure that the project is doing things right.

PMBOK Guide is a registered mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

Project Human Resource Management 00:32:07This Nugget covers the sixth Knowledge Area - Project Human Resource Management. While Project Human Resource Management has some special characteristics due to the temporary nature of projects, specifically around team building, Project Human Resource Management is very similar to organizational Human Resource Management. Project Human Resource Management has 4 processes. Develop Human Resource Plan - this segment of the Nugget focuses on developing the Project Staffing Plan identifying the staffing requirements as well as the start and finish times for each resource. With the Staffing Plan in place, the Nugget then reviews the creation of the project organization chart and the definition of the roles and responsibilities for all team members. These are critical steps in HR planning as it ensures that all team members know their position in the project and what the project's expectations on them are. Acquire Project Team - acquiring the team is typically a significant upfront activity as the team is ramped up with some ongoing team acquisition due to normal team attrition and project phase re-staffing. Ideally, team acquisition should be as simple as executing the staffing plan, but in all likelihood the ideal team identified in the Staffing Plan are not available. The Nugget reviews the negotiation and re-planning which would take place as a shortfalls in team availabilities are resolved. Develop Project Team - this process is where Project Human Resource Management differs the most from Organizational Human Resource management due to the need to pay significant attention due to the characteristic of a project pulling together groups of team members who potentially never worked together. The Nugget reviews a number of tips and techniques for ensuring the team functional as a highly performing team for the duration of the project. Manage Project Team - the Nugget closes with a review of the activities related to managing and motivating the team and most importantly actively dealing with conflicts between team members.

Project Communication Management 00:34:28This Nugget covers the seventh Knowledge Area - Project Communication Management. Project communications is key to successful project delivery as it ensures that all Project Stakeholders receive the communications needed to stay informed. Project Communications Management has 5 processes. Identify Stakeholders - the Nugget begins with a review of the steps to identify the project's stakeholders and doing a complete stakeholder analysis to identify their information requirements. With this information an effective Communications Management Plan is developed to document the processes to be followed by the project related to communications. Plan Communication - this segment of the Nugget identify developed the information gathering, summarization and reporting of project information based on the "who, what, when and how" of the individual stakeholders. The Nugget reviews two important concepts for developing an effective communications system related to managing the lines of communication needed and the important of minimizing the number of lines of communications to provident any loss of information related to the "encoding - transmitting - decoding" of each communication. Distribute Information - this process focuses on ensuring that the appropriate communications style and medium are used to distribute the requested project's information. As well, the Nugget reviews the importance of meetings for project delivery and how meetings can be effectively run. Manage Stakeholders Expectations - this process focuses on ensuring that all communications with the stakeholders, including informal commitments to provide a status update by tomorrow at noon, are delivered on time or an explanation for why the communications will be delayed. The Nugget introduces an "Issue Log" where all "promises" are recorded and tracked to successful conclusion. Report Performance - the processes defines the steps to complete the variance analysis, forecasts and performance reports required to effectively report project performance based on the stakeholder expectations defined in the Communications Management Plan.

Project Risk Management 00:44:56This Nugget covers the seventh Knowledge Area - Project Risk Management. Risk Management is typically one of the more difficult aspects for new Project Managers to understand as it is focused on identifying, documenting and eliminating unknown, unpredictable future events that can impact the success of the Project. Project Risk Management has 6 process, 5 related to Planning and 1 related to Monitoring and Control. Plan Risk Management - this process is focused on identifying the strategies which will be required to ensure that the appropriate level of Risk Management is applied based on the Business area's tolerance for risk. Identify Risks - the Nugget then reviews a number of techniques which can be used to identify the risk events which could impact the project's success. The project's risk register is started at this point to capture all identified risks. Identification of risks is a process which needs to be repeated on a regular basis throughout project delivery to ensure that improved project knowledge helps identify additional project risks. Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis - this process starts with the complete set of risks identified and begins the analysis of the probability and impact that the risk will occur and impact the project. With Impact and Probability identified and the Risk Tolerance, the risk register is updated to categorize the risks based on the risk tolerance. The Nugget reviews a Risk Ranking Matrix which can be used to perform Qualitative Risk Analysis. Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis - this process presents an additional form of Risk Analysis to further review and categorize the risks based on numerical analysis methods such as Probability Distributions, Sensitivity Analysis, Expected Monitory Analysis and Simulations. Develop Risk Responses - with the risks fully categorized, the process then develops the plans to Avoid, Transfer, Mitigate or Accept each risk. The Nugget reviews the strategies to be applied for each risk response approach including processes for developing Risk Contingencies and Reserves for both time and money which will be available to deal with the risk events should the occur during project delivery. Monitor and Control Risks - this final Risk Process defines the regular processes to be applied to review the risk plans to determine if risk events are taking place, in which case the Risk Plans and Contingencies are applied to help ensure the project continues on budget and schedule.

Project Procurement Management 00:30:10This Nugget covers the ninth and final Knowledge Area. Project Procurement Management has 4 Processes. Plan Procurements - this process covers the steps for making the build/buy decision and then based on the assumption that the buy decision was made for at least one project component, the Nugget then reviews the processes for determining the what, when and how of project procurement. Each project procurement will require separate procurement decisions for purchase style; tender versus commodity purchase and procurement type; fixed price versus per diem decision. Conduct Procurements - this process prepares the project procurement documents, conducts the procurement activities, such as bidder conference and selects the successful vendors using an evaluation matrix which defines in advance the requirements, evaluation criteria, and selection process. This evaluation matrix is a critical aspect of selection process to ensure that a fair, honest and defendable selection process took place. Administer Procurements - in this process the Project Manager becomes the procurement acceptor with the expectation that each vendor provides evidence to the project that the terms and conditions of the contracts are being satisfied. Close Procurements - Each procurement goes through a final acceptance process where the deliverables are accepted on behalf of the project and final approval for payment provided. A final aspect of Close Procurements is to conduct a lessons learned to ensure that the organization benefits from working with this vendor, specifically a determination of any changes which need to be made for the next time (if any) the company works with this vendor.

CAPM Summary 00:48:42This Nugget provides a summary of the PMBOK® Guide in terms of the 5 Process Groups: Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling and Closing and the 9 Knowledge Areas: Scope, Time, Cost, Quality, Human Resources, Communications, Risk, Procurement and Integration Management. The Process Groups define the life cycle phases that Project Managers take to move a project from initial start up to final project conclusion. The Knowledge Areas define the skills that PMs apply to complete all project management activities needed to successfully deliver a project.

PMBOK Guide is a registered mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.